Novel Asymmetric Slant Field Plate Technology for High-Speed Low-Dynamic Ron E/D-mode GaN HEMTs

• Published in: IEEE electron device letters 2017-01, Vol.38 (1), p.95-98
• Main Authors: Wong, Joel, Shinohara, Keisuke, Corrion, Andrea L., Brown, David F., Carlos, Zenon, Williams, Adam, Yan Tang, Robinson, John F., Khalaf, Isaac, Fung, Helen, Schmitz, Adele, Oh, Thomas, Kim, Samuel, Chen, Steven, Burnham, Shawn, Margomenos, Alex, Micovic, Miroslav
• Format: Article
• Language: eng ; jpn
• Subjects: Dynamic ON-resistance; Electric fields; Epitaxial growth; field plate; Gallium nitride; GaN HEMT; HEMTs; Logic gates; MODFETs; power switch; Switches
• ISSN: 0741-3106; 1558-0563
• DOI: 10.1109/LED.2016.2634528

In this letter, we discuss a novel asymmetric field plate structure utilizing a slanted field plate (FP) engineered to appropriately distribute the electric field on GaN high-electron mobility transistors (HEMTs) scaled for low-loss, high-speed power switch applications. A uniform electric field distribution achieved with the slant FP enables an optimum device design, where a low-dynamic ON-resistance (R on,dyn ) and high breakdown voltage are obtained simultaneously by minimizing the gate-drain distance. The optimized FP design demonstrated a low R on,dyn of 2.3 (2.1) Ω-mm at a quiescent drain voltage of 50V in E-mode (D-mode) HEMTs with a breakdown voltage of 138 V (146 V). The corresponding high-frequency performance of E-mode (D-mode) HEMTs of peak f T /f max = 41/100 GHz (53/100 GHz) yielded a decent R on,dyn ×Qg product in the range of 31.0-34.5 (28.0-33.3) mQ-nC. This new slant FP technology combined with scaled epitaxial structure (for short L g ) and reduced access resistances, using n+ GaN ohmic contacts, greatly enhances performance and design flexibility of high-speed, low-loss, GaN power switch devices.